When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who watch over my way. Psalm 142:3. 

There are moments, days, when what we need most is quiet with our Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit. There are times when I feel my spirit dance with my Lord and times when I know He carries me. I can’t help but think when reading our chapter, Job 36, that all of the words of Job’s friends are because they are not sitting where Job is sitting. It’s easy in the proverbial cheap seats to speak and postulate. I get my knowledge from afar; I will ascribe justice to my Maker. Be assured that my words are not false; one who has perfect knowledge is with you…v. 2, 3, 4. Elihu goes on in his perfect knowledge and I can only imagine what Job experienced. But if people are bound in chains, held fast by cords of affliction, he tells them what they have done – that they have sinned arrogantly…If they obey and serve him, they will spend the rest of their days in prosperity and their years in contentment…But now you laden with the judgment due the wicked; judgment and justice have taken hold of you…Beware of turning to evil, which you seem to prefer to affliction…v. 8, 9, 11, 17, 21. 

Last night I was thinking about what it must have been like for Jesus when He was teaching people. He was saying things they instinctively knew came from authority and at the same time things so different from what they thought they knew about God. How wonderful and how frustrating was that for Jesus? When He raised His friend Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-44) knowing that He, too, would be raised from the dead – what was that like for Him? When He healed people and saw the joy in their eyes, did that portend the healing we will all of us experience with Him? Physical healing of bodies rent with pain, spiritual healing of hearts and minds that do not know God, hearts every one healed of the pain we have each of us inflicted and suffered. 

We live in our present age and Job and his friends lived in theirs. Yet each one of us will one day take our last breath and stand before our Maker. Can you imagine what that will be like? The disciples had the privilege of spending 3 years with our Maker. They won’t be surprised. Will we? But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” John 6:20.